


Another Day at the Office

by writingfromdarkplaces



Series: Fleet Legal Advocate Corps Alternate Universe [3]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfromdarkplaces/pseuds/writingfromdarkplaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee contemplates his current case and tries not to think about the past. Too bad she comes knocking on the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Day at the Office

**Author's Note:**

> There is a part of me that says I should sit down and write this properly, but there's so much I don't know how to deal with and I'm not sure I can contain myself to work on it just now anyway. My mind is bouncing around old stories and new concepts and creating all these AUs to torment me, I swear.
> 
> But I liked my opening dialogue and that was pretty much the end of my resistance for this little bit, at least.

* * *

Somehow, Lee thought saying his client was an irredeemable frakwit that couldn't keep it in his pants would win him any points with the jury, but as he studied his notes for court tomorrow, it was all he could think. The case was ridiculous. He hadn't seen one this bad in months, but it all boiled down to a man that couldn't think with the right head being in the wrong place with the wrong woman just in time to cause a disaster that had crippled a battlestar.

It would be funny if it wasn't so frakking stupid.

Or if he wasn't being punished by being assigned the defense on this one.

_“You think this is what you want, Lee?” His father's voice was cold, colder than usual, and the disapproval rumbled around his quarters on Galactica. Coming here was a mistake, but Lee had hoped, with as old as the ship was and with his father's stance on networks that it was a little less likely anyone would overhear them here._

_“Would you rather I resigned my commission, sir?” Lee asked, bitterness creeping into the words. “Because that is still an option, I'm told.”_

_“You're talking about the people who took your wings.”_

_“You think I don't frakking know that?” Lee demanded. “They won't even let me fly Raptors. They've banned me from having a civilian license. But I don't care what they frakking say. I did_ not _crash that plane.”_

_“A man has to take responsibility for his actions, right or wrong—”_

_“I don't frakking believe you,” Lee said, stung by the betrayal. “You—You know what? Frak you. Take the frakking party line if you want. Accept the lies. That's what you do, isn't it? You do what the orders say and the fleet wants. You don't question them. You never have.”_

_“Captain—”_

_“Don't you frakking dare,” Lee snapped, backing toward the door. “Don't pull rank on me. You don't want to listen to your son, fine. You don't have to. We never have to say a damn word to each other again. Don't come to me if you ever need legal advice.”_

_“We are not done here.”_

_“Oh, yes, we are. We were done the minute you believed them over your own son,” Lee told him, wishing it was more satisfying to slam the hatch closed behind him._

Lee shoved his closing statement to the side, not sure why he'd replayed that argument with his father again. He still didn't understand how that had happened. No, they were never close, and he'd resented his father's absence through most of his childhood, but it still rankled that his father had accepted pilot error for the crash instead of listening to him.

Of course, these days he pretended he believed that as well, so maybe it was past time to talk again. He snorted. That wouldn't happen unless his father came to him. Lee was not going to him.

“I think I need to hire a lawyer. Seems I may have decked a fellow officer and he says he's going to press charges.”

Lee tensed, recognizing that voice with both excitement and dread. He forced himself not to look at his doorway. “That's not how it works, Lieutenant. You would be assigned representation if you were in actual need of it. That comes down from command, and as it is, I am in the middle of a trial and unavailable for the foreseeable future, even if you had a case.”

“No, I'd have to insist on getting you,” she said, sauntering across his office to his desk. “I wouldn't let anyone else represent me. I need the one that's got a stick up his ass but is easy on the eyes. And, I'm told, the best at what he frakking does.”

Lee shook his head. “What are you doing here, Thrace?”

“I told you.”

“And you're lying,” he countered. She shrugged as she sat down on the corner of his desk, picking up the paperweight a former client gave him as a joke. Nothing special, just a rock, but it said volumes to what the man had thought of Lee even after he got him acquitted. “What do you want?”

She laughed, putting the rock back. “What do you _think_ I want, Captain?”

“A bottle of the Colonies' best ambrosia, a box of illegal cigars, and a custom triad deck.”

“Not bad,” she said, coming around the desk. “I'll let you pick which one of those you get me as a present but I—”

“No one said I was getting you any presents,” Lee told her. “I may know what you like, but that does not mean I'm interested in gifting them to you. We were quite clear the last time we spoke.”

“Actually, we weren't,” she said, stopping next to his chair. She nudged his leg with hers. “You were all rules and regulations and inflated ego, and you did what you said you were going to do, closed the investigation and left, and I let you do it—”

“You let me do it?” Lee scoffed. “I don't think so, Starbuck. I chose to go, and right about now, I'm also choosing to have you escorted out of my office and—”

She kissed him, moving faster than he could react to go from against his desk to in his lap, and he cursed her as she did. Damn it, why? He didn't need this. He had to keep himself far from this woman and all of her temptation, and it was working until she walked right into his office.

She pulled back, taking a few breaths.

“Frak.”

She laughed. “Well, I'm sure we'll get there.”

He pushed her back, holding onto her hands. “No, we won't. We are not doing this again. Last time was a mistake, but it's not one that has to be made twice.”

“More like for the sixth or seventh time, depending on what you're counting,” she said, and he tried not to laugh. “See? You don't want to stop me, not really. You missed me.”

“I did not.”

“Now you're the one that's lying. Sure, you never call, you never write, but you definitely missed me,” she said, giving his lap a pointed glance. “I've got proof.”

He shook his head, trying to decide if this was possibly the gods' punishment for being an atheist, or if he was just that unlucky. He felt plenty humiliated, that was for sure. “You need to leave.”

“I came for legal advice, remember? And I don't think you're going anywhere right now, so why don't you give me some?”

“I'm supposed to be in court.”

“Oh, poor baby,” she muttered. “I could kiss it better...”

“Frak you,” he said, and somehow they both ended up laughing despite everything. She leaned back into him, and he didn't stop her this time. She kissed along his jaw and over to his ear.

“My guidance system cut out yesterday in the middle of a training exercise,” she whispered. “Lee, we have to do something before this kills every pilot in the fleet.”


End file.
